Google and EU antitrust rules

In her yesterday’s statement, EU Commissioner Verstagen informed that the preliminary conclusion of the investigation of Google with respect to Android OS is that Google’s practices breach EU antitrust rules.

In a Statement of Objections to Google, EU Commission concluded that Google’s practices impose unjustified restrictions and conditions on manufacturers of devices running its Android OS.

While the EU Commission praises the fact that Android is an open-source model, it considers dangerous that Android on most phones comes pre-installed with the default Google Search, restricting Google’s rival search engines to access the market.

Similarly, majority of manufacturers ship their mobiles and tablets with Google’s proprietary apps and services, such as Google Search, Google Play Store and Google Chrome. Pre-installation of these apps and services, however, requires a licence from Google, awarded only under certain restrictive conditions, e.g. the need to pre-install Google Search if the manufacturers wish to pre-install Google’s Play Store, etc.